Torah plainly states that there is one Torah for Israel and the Gentile who dwells with her - yet, many try to use Acts 15 as "proof" that Christians don't have to keep Torah. That is because they don't realize that Acts 15 is referring to man-made laws and not the Torah itself...

The "million dollar question" that has successfully split the Messianic movement today is: Are Gentiles required to obey Torah? And the answer is a resounding, "YES!"

Acts 15: 19 "Therefore, my opinion is that we should not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to God. 20 Instead, we should write them a letter telling them to abstain from things polluted by idols, from fornication, from what is strangled and from blood. 21 For from the earliest times, Moshe has had in every city those who proclaim him, with his words being read in the synagogues every Shabbat."

Note verse 19 which says: "Therefore, my opinion is that we should not put obstacles in the way of the Goyim who are turning to God"! Read in context Acts 15 plainly states that the expectation of the non-Jewish converts was that they would learn Moshe (Torah) as they grew in their relationship with Mashiyach and his people. Read in context, Acts 15:20-21 shows there is one Torah for Israel and the Gentile who dwells with her - yet, many try to use it as "proof" that Christians don't have to keep Torah. That is because they don't realize that Acts 15 is referring to man-made laws and not the Torah itself....

Read in context Acts 15 plainly states that the expectation of the non-Jewish converts was that they would learn Torah as they grew in their relationship with Mashiyach and his people.

Please think about this as well:

• When Avraham was called out of Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis 12), there were no "Jews"; there were no "rabbis"; there was only one man who listened to and obeyed YHWH. Avraham, who both left his homeland and came out of paganism by accepting YHWH became a "Hebrew" which means "to cross over."
  
  
• When Moshe led the people put of Egypt, he was accompanied by a "mixed multitude" (Exodus 12:38) and he shared "the Law" with ALL when he came down from the mountain. He did not send the "foreigners" away!
  
  
• While Joseph lived in Egypt (Genesis 30-50), born to him from an Egyptian wife were Efrayim and Mannasheh who were given tribes within the nation of Israel. Though half Egyptian (pagan) they were given equal status with the sons of Israel.

YHWH made it perfectly clear that ALL who accepted Him were to OBEY Him:

Exodus 12: 48 If a foreigner staying with you wants to observe ADONAI's Pesach, all his males must be circumcised. Then he may take part and observe it; he will be like a citizen of the land. But no uncircumcised person is to eat it. 49 The same teaching is to apply equally to the citizen and to the foreigner living among you."

Leviticus 17: 8 "Then you shall say to them, 'Any man from the house of Israel, or from the aliens who sojourn among them, who offers a burnt offering or sacrifice, 9 and does not bring it to the doorway of the tent of meeting to offer it to the LORD, that man also shall be cut off from his people.

Leviticus 24: 22 You are to apply the same standard of judgment to the foreigner as to the citizen, because I am ADONAI your God."

Numbers 9: 14 If a foreigner is staying with you and wants to observe Pesach for ADONAI, he is to do it according to the regulations and rules of Pesach- you are to have the same law for the foreigner as for the citizen of the land.'"

Numbers 15: 13 "'Everyone who is native-born must do these things in this way when he brings an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the LORD. 14 For the generations to come, whenever an alien or anyone else living among you presents an offering made by fire as an aroma pleasing to the LORD, he must do exactly as you do. 15 The community is to have the same rules for you and for the alien living among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the alien shall be the same before the LORD: 16 The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the alien living among you.'"

Deuteronomy 31: 11 when all Isra'el have come to appear in the presence of ADONAI at the place he will choose, ou are to read this Torah before all Isra'el, so that they can hear it. 12 Assemble the people-the men, the women, the little ones and the foreigners you have in your towns -so that they can hear, learn, fear ADONAI your God and take care to obey all the words of this Torah;

We are told in Exodus 22: 21 "You shall neither mistreat a stranger nor oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt". In other words: As believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, we are one in God's eyes, and are therefore required to act accordingly.

How much clearer could it be? The "foreigner" (anyone who is not a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who has decided they want YHWH as their God MUST obey His Divine Instructions in Righteousness! Remember, YHWH did NOT make His New Covenant with Gentiles; He made it with the Torah observant Houses of Israel and Judah (Jeremiah 31:32). As "grafted in" Christians are part of Israel - which means they must do EXACTLY the same as YHWH's "natural children."

Nowhere in the "New Testament" are we ever told that "Jesus" abolished the need for Torah! Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and does not know their Bible! Anyone who attempts to refer you to the much-misunderstood writings of Paul (who, incidentally was Torah observant and NEVER spoke against Torah!) needs to be reminded that YESHUA, not Paul, was YHWH in the Flesh and we are to obey GOD!

Tim Hegg, author of "It is Often Said" writes:

The Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 was dealing with a specific issue: Was it necessary for Gentiles as new converts to take on the full weight of the man-made laws of the Sages in order to be accepted within the Jewish community? The Council voiced a unified "no" to this question. Using "circumcision" as a shorthand designation for "the ritual of becoming a proselyte," the Council determined that the Gentile converts would not need to be circumcised in order to be received into the Torah community.

There was, however, the need to assure the Jewish community that those Gentiles who had confessed Yeshua as Messiah had genuinely forsaken any form of idolatry. (Remember, the term "Gentiles" equated with "pagans" in those days.) Since the Greek and Roman cultures were centered around idol worship with local pagan temples, it was important the Jewish community be able to receive the Gentile believers without any suspicion of remaining idolatry. The apostles, therefore, required the Gentiles to accept the extra-biblical, man-made laws regarding idolatry. These were:

• They should not participate in any meal that was even remotely connected to idol worship.
  
  
• They should not participate in any gathering or ceremony that involved the misuse of blood as a sacrificial element.
  
  
• They should not involve themselves in any ritual or ceremony that involved the strangulation of animals, and they should be careful not to eat meat from animals killed through strangulation (something not uncommon in the pagan sacrificial rituals).
  
  
• They should distance themselves from any contact with or support of the temple prostitutes and the fornication they represented in the pagan temple precincts.

While the written Torah certainly prohibited any worship of the idols, the Sages had put a good number of fences in place to distance the people from contact with idolatry. These fences were extra-biblical, yet the apostles considered them essential in showing the clear break the Gentile believers had made with idolatry.

But since they were man-made and not directly from Scripture, they were part of the yoke of oral Torah, the burden that the Sages had laid upon the written Scriptures. While the apostles were unwilling to put the Gentiles under the full weight of the traditions - something not even the Jewish people had been able to bear - they did see the need to require the Gentiles to keep this rabbinic teaching. Only such a requirement could have fully satisfied the Jewish community that the Gentile believers had made a radical break from their former idol worship.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: If Acts 15 is an exhaustive list of forbidden behavior then Christians can lie, steal, ignore the widow and the orphan, use imbalanced scales when selling produce, and provoke their children to wrath, pray to the dead, consult wizards and astrologists, and not think that there is only One True God, YHWH, just to name a few.....